Last Round

This first layout today, is a pattern that is exclusive to Studio J members. In addition to patterns, there are also paper kits exclusive to Studio J Members. Then on top of that there are Studio Paper kits that are not available in traditional paper kits. Still with me?

Fantastic! This layout was super easy! I changed the chocolate base from a Colonial White one, but all the other elements are the same as what was suggested. It took me about 20 minutes from starting up the computer to adding this to my shopping cart!

Yay! The final page! This one illustrates the toggle effect. When you select a kit it will have some basic embellishments suggested for you. If you don't like what they suggest, you can simply turn them "off" by toggling the switch located under "Embellishments" on the left tool bar. If you have the gray showing of an uncolored embellishment, it will print that way (you get a warning at checkout), but if you toggle them off they disappear as if they were never there. If you change your mind you can toggle them back on. For this layout, I actually put ribbons in the same general places, but the original one on the left page went right across Aidan's face. You can't simply move one that is one of the originals, so I toggled off and added my own. Then I changed the ribbons on the right side to match. Perfect!

Warm wishes,

Day four of Marsh Lake

Before we get started, just a reminder to get your Studio J orders in before the end of the month if you are a member so you can get your freebies! Also, the March block party ends tomorrow at 11:59 p.m. Let me know when you want your free My Acrylix block!

One thing I love about the Unitahs is its temper. Take this layout, the picture on the left side is from that morning while Brandon and the kids were out fishing (the very small blob of red on the right shore in the trees.) The picture on the right side was taken a few hours later in the midst of one of the worst rain storms I have ever seen up there! When the storms get fired up, they rip, but it's short-lived in the summer and only last a few hours. I used to hate the rain, but I've come to love it! (And a good thing, because it rains A LOT in the Uintahs!)

The brads on this page were duplicated with the copy and paste option. It's great because you can exactly replicate the spacing and alignment by simply grouping your embellishments (hold the shift button down, then click on each one to be grouped) then click "copy". When you "paste" they will show the same blue line around each one indicating it is still selected. I find it's easiest to orient it first (rotate) before the drag and drop. Then move your mouse over one of the elements then hold and drag where you want it.

All three layouts are pages in which I changed the paper combinations after the initial load. After you choose your paper kit and your layout pattern, it will prompt you with 6 choices of papers and colors. I am not a fan of white space and often prefer to have a dark paper as my base rather than the Colonial White or White Daisy that is suggested in the basic pattern. If you see one you don't like, don't worry! You can always change the paper afterward! In both layout 1 and 2 the Colonial White base was changed to New England Ivy with a click of the mouse! Simply select the paper you want changed and click on the box of colors. It will prompt you with the suggested colors for the kit then below that you can choose from all 60 colors of cardstock. If you want a B&T as in layout 1, you choose paper from the left tool bar and it will give you a selection of the pattern papers available with the kit. It's how I changed the B&T to the distressed Barn Red.

I hope you've enjoyed today's layouts! They have been so much fun to create in Studio J. I'm totally hooked now, and I'm actually getting caught up on my 10-year scrapbooking hiatus! I LOVE IT! You can see the final 3 layouts from our trip on tomorrow's post.

Warm wishes,

Two More Studio J Layouts

These two layouts are from our second day in Marsh Lake. Yes, I take A LOT of pictures. Don't make fun, it was difficult to weed it down to the ones I got, lol! The tips for these pages are less visible, but I wanted to tell you about them just the same.

 This first layout was one of my fastest! I didn't edit any of the photos and I kept the kit the way it was originally designed. However, it didn't always look like this! Notice the Butterfly in the bottom left corner. I loved this photo when I shot it, but the butterfly was much smaller in the overall photo. Through the magic of cropping, though I zoomed in to see the detail then saved it. Fast forward to Studio J time. On my first layout I wanted to highlight the butterfly - it was such a random event -we'd been driving slow waiting for the kids to catch up when low and behold this butterfly landed on the road practically under our feet! So I added this photo to a 4x6 photo well. Up pops a little yellow triangle with an exclamation point in it similar to the one below.

This symbol tells you your photo doesn't have enough resolution to look good in the size you have chosen. You can either rescan and/or resize it and upload it again or choose a smaller photo well. So I chose a layout that had a small photo well where it would still be prominent in the layout. I'm so glad Studio J tells me this because the photo looked fine on my computer's image editor, but if I had printed it for a traditional layout it wouldn't have turned out.

Layout number two uses a few of the same techniques we've rehashed, like text boxes over My Stickease on the Checklist, and in this case, even some stitching! The title is created with the Title Tool, which uses the My Stickease Alphabet and easily matches the spacing and proportion for you. I added a text box beneath "Under" to finish the title. Just remove the "paper" from the text box to get a clear background and you can add text over anything - photos, Stickease, titles. Thirdly, the right side journalling box was modified from the original which covered all 3 papers below the photos across the whole page. I just didn't have that much journalling for this page, despite Studio J's ability to scale the font to the box size, so I deleted the Journal text box, then added another that I could size to my specifications and finished it off with some brads.

Check out this video by Tresa Black about why Studio J is so fabulous!

Stay tuned this week for more Marsh Lake coverage and Studio J tips and don't forget to take advantage of the Block Party Constant Campaign, now through March 31st where you can get a free My Acrylix block with your $25 stamp order!

Warm wishes,

Studio J and Marsh Lake

Good morning! I can't believe how much I've learned about Studio J in just playing around online. Did you know you play and you never have to pay unless you decide to print? Sure! I know you'll love it if you try it, too. I mean check these pages out? And best of all, I got free shipping, free page protectors, free jpegs to put on my website and I have a full-size jpeg stored and backed up in addition to my professionally printed scrapbook, all for only $3.25 per page (as a consultant I get an additional 22% off - totally worth it even if all you do is hobby!) Learn more about the savings with Studio J memberships by contacting me today!

The first layout uses multiple My Stickease branches to create a log pole in which to stick the journalling "signs". This is a small branch copied and pasted several times to get the desired height for the amount of journalling. The "signs" are a Title, "On the Trail", shrunk down to the size I wanted and then text boxes added  to create journalling strips. The photos on both layouts have been fixed in Studio J to make the colors pop a bit more by tweaking the brightness and contrast. I also gave the center logging picture a surreal effect by changing the hue and saturation.

I confess I may have given myself a face lift on the second page... It's not the best picture. It needed all the help I could give it! A little airbrushing magic and glare removal were all that was needed. I couldn't help the hair, but, eh. You do what you can.

***Studio J Members, have you got your layouts in for the month? There's still time to save on shipping and sheet protectors with your minimum purchase of 4 layouts!***

Warm wishes,

PS- Happy Birthday to Jeanette Lynton our founder and CEO of Close To My Heart!

Marsh Lake Album

Tip #1 - You can resize all of the My Stickease up to 200%! The tags and title have all been changed from their original sizes. 

I'm so excited, I finally finished by Studio J album of our trip to Marsh Lake this past summer! (Click on the photos to seem them bigger and read the journaling!) After watching all of the online tutorials by fellow consultant, Amy Ulen (she has 16 now), I've really had the itch to get these done. I've had them uploaded for several months now, but never could find the time. Silly me! That's what Studio J is for! 

This weekend I completed TWELVE 2-page layouts from our trip to Marsh and 5 MORE from our Disneyland vacation over Christmas! I NEVER would have finished that many with traditional scrapbooking. Well, you know me. I take an hour just to pick out the layout I want to use! Studio J makes it easy though because you can easily choose a layout based on the number of photos, just like our pattern books, but it also gives you 6 kit suggestions to start with the papers picked! This simple feature takes out most of the time I waste wondering what to do! Then, click, drag and drop and you're done!

After having lost my photos many times over the years due to technological malfunctions, viruses, and most recently - Garrett, I LOVE the security of knowing my photos are securely stored online just waiting for my login to scrap them!

Tip #2 - Place a text box over your My Stickease to customize them. Check out the beaver's sign!

I also loved that I could use Back Country My Reflections Kit to get my camping photos done. I've had them sitting in my files so long the paper kit retired! There are at least four exclusive kits in Studio J that have never been released in paper and every kit since 2008 is still available. Never miss a trick!

I'll be showing off my work throughout the week so make sure to stop by and see how our trip went. Don't forget, from now until April 30th, you can order the Hope For Japan A-size set for only $5 and 100% goes to the American Red Cross Japan Relief Fund. See this special set here, and order it here. The block party is still going on through the end of March. Get a free 3x3 or 6x2-1/2 My Acrylix block with your $25 stamp purchase. Shop my website or contact me today!

Warm wishes,

Marsh Lake, er, Statel.. er, the Uintahs

*A whole bunch of camping pictures today!!*
Lots of changes at CTMH while I was out of town - it's a killer to know I missed seeing the new Autumn/Winter Idea Book firsthand by THREE HOURS. Ugh. But I am back and it is beautiful! I can't wait to show it to you! Over the next month watch for hints and updates!!

Now, on to the marshmallows!! Er, I mean family vacation! My husband's family has been going to the Uintahs for five generations. We have missed going the past few years and we were really grateful to be able to go back again this year. It was Garrett's first time and we also asked my parents along. They have been camping in the area many times, but have never had the pleasure of staying on the Marsh Lake, so it was much anticipated on all sides.

Despite starting the week off with a minor roadblock.. okay, a REALLY BIG ROADBLOCK, just a half mile in front of our preferred campsite.. we made lemonade and ended up having a really great time at a new campground, Stateline. As you can see it rained a TON, but we got a few rides in each day and saw a side of Marsh that we hadn't yet.

There were a lot of animals out. Not just your neighborhood campground Alvins, either. We saw a beaver and many beautiful birds including our pals the Camp Robbers, and even a bull moose just outside of our campground!

The first day was unquestionably the warmest I have EVER seen it up there. I believe it hit the 70s. I drove up in my shorts and t shirt and never changed to warmer clothes, even sitting around the fire later that night, and that's usually a necessity. A couple we ran into from West Bountiful said that it had been lovely all day and rained the three days previous. We hoped for a drier, warmer Marsh, er.. Stateline.

Never to happen. As Murphy would have it, rain was a constant companion all day every day, with one truly horrible deluge. It also happened to be the day we were out riding about ten miles from camp and got caught in it. We all came back completely soaked and dripping! It had actually hailed on us for a short time. Brandon saw my Dad hit the gas just as a front swept over him and gleefully yelled, "Here we go!" Man! that was a PAINFUL ride back! We laughed, though, and chalked it up to some great memories! (We learned not to get too far away from camp, though!)

All in all it was a great trip and the rain even let up... on the last day! Lol! It's always rainy but we would have been hard pressed to have a good time in just our tent. We were very grateful for Grandpa's Bus (motorhome.) Here are some more pictures of our trip and I hope you enjoy looking as much as we did making!!

Warmly,

Beautiful Marsh Lake. The mirror before the storm.

Mondo Marshmallows!!

Grandma got some Green and Purple flames from camping World. We made our own Northern Lights!

Sunset over the mountain.

We had a small visitor who got stuck whilst trying to steal dinner.. Poor, poor Theodore..

Stateline Reservoir

Deer in the Glenn. The beetles have really destroyed the forest up here. The larvae causes a fungus that prevents the trees from getting water. It only affects mature trees, but it's sad. The forest will never look like it once did three years ago in our lifetime.